To Find Out What Forever Means
by SlytherinsScribe
Summary: My first DBZ fic, it's a one shot that I could add on to if I wanted to, though I doubt it. WARNINGS: Suicide, character death


The only light in the room was a single flickering candle. He wrote slowly and carefully with the old fashioned fountain pen, but he needed to do this. They needed to know the truth.

-

Bra saw her father walking towards the Gravity and intercepted him, "Daddy, will you play with me?"

Vegeta looked at his five year-old daughter and frowned, "Go ask your mother."

"Okay." She said, surely mommy would play with her.

-

With his writing finished he blew the paper dry before setting it at the base of the picture that he had placed next to the candle beside his bed. His hands shook as he lifted the small chain over his head and placed it on the paper. He bit back tears and fear as he grabbed the knife, his key to freedom. After a bated breath he committed the act that would end his life.

-

"Mommy, will you play with me?" Bra asked as she skipped into the kitchen where her mother was making dinner.

"Sorry Bra," Bulma said, "I'm busy, why don't you ask Trunks?"

Bra glowed at the idea of playing with her brother and left the room instantly to go find her older brother.

-

The pain wasn't so bad, he'd had worse. He felt himself slipping away and instinctively struggled to keep consciousness, he finally stopped his instinct from controlling him and slipped away to nothingness, blissful nothingness.

-

"Mommy!" Bra said reentering the kitchen after being gone for all of eight minutes, and it was beginning to get on Bulma's nerves.

"Yes?" She answered.

"Trunks is sleeping and won't get up." The girl whined.

"We'll see about that." Bulma said setting everything up so she had a half hour of free time, then she walked upstairs with her daughter to find her son and wake him up. Why was he sleeping in the middle of the day?

His door was open from Bra's attempt to get him, and Bulma could see he was lying on his back in the dark with a candle lit. Since when did he have candles? She began walking towards him to try to wake him up but froze several feet from his bed. Thankfully Bra was too short to see what Bulma had. After a moment she regained her composure and said very softly, "Bra, go get your father."

"But daddy's in the Gravity Room." The little girl argued.

"I know honey, just go get him. Tell him it's urgent." Some of her fright slipped into her voice and that got Bra moving. As far as the little girl was concerned, her mommy and daddy weren't afraid of anything.

-

Vegeta heard a knock on the Gravity Room door, but it was far too quiet to be Trunks and Bulma never knocked, she just barged in and ruined his training. Strange, his five year-old never wanted to train or watch him train, and hadn't he just told her he didn't want to play with her. He powered down and flung the door open to see the blue haired girl looking slightly frightened.

"Mommy says you need to go to Trunks' room. It's urgent." He didn't want to stop his training, but he couldn't resist his daughter. He rolled his eyes and slid by her to go to his son's room. _This better be worth missing my training_. He got to the second floor landing and saw his wife leaning against the door of Trunks' room, and she was crying.

"What's going on?" Vegeta growled.

Bulma looked up to see him and stuttered, "T-trunks…" She was unable to finish the thought because she began crying again.

Vegeta immediately assumed the seventeen year old had done something, "What did the brat do now?"

"Don't talk about him like that!" The woman screamed at him, and then her voice fell to no more than a whisper, "He's gone…"

"What do you mean he's gone?" Vegeta said in a lower voice, not wanting to urge her to another scream.

"He k-killed himself… he's dead…" Bulma burst into tears again, seeing his death and admitting were two very different levels of acceptance. Vegeta just stood next to her looking at her as if she'd said something impossible had happened, which, as far as Vegeta was concerned, was what happened. Bulma had told him about depressed teens, and Trunks didn't act like them. His grades were at the top of his class, everyone thought he was happy, he spent hours every week playing with his sister, he never wore black, and generally was smiling. How could he turn from a boy playing tea party for his sister's sake to taking his own life in a matter of hours?

"Are you sure he killed himself?" Vegeta asked.

Bulma looked at him and spoke very quietly, "His entire left side is covered in blood, there's a knife in his right hand, and he has no pulse." She didn't even add the 'I'm pretty sure he's dead' in that plaintive tone of hers. After a minute she regained a lot of composure, "We can't let Bra see this. I'm going to go finish dinner and keep her busy, can you get a sheet out of the closet and cover him up until we can figure out what to do?"

Vegeta nodded and both started on their tasks. After retrieving the large white sheet he once again approached the door, he was dreading seeing the body, because until he did he could deny that his son had killed himself. He took a deep breath and opened the door to be met with darkness, the whole room was dark except for the candlelit corner of the room by Trunks. From a distance he could be mistaken for sleeping, but at six feet away he could see the boy's left side was covered in blood that reflected the light from the candle and make out the outline of the knife that was covered in the blood as well. He unfolded the sheet and threw it over his son's lifeless body, but in attempt to keep it away from the candle the sheet missed his head completely.

Vegeta gently took the edge of the sheet and pulled it over Trunks' face that was staring forever into nothing and he could still feel the heat, the boy hadn't been dead. He couldn't miss the painful pang of guilt that hit his chest, what if Trunks had done this because he thought that Vegeta didn't care for him? Many people insinuated that he didn't, but he had thought he had shown the boy that he cared for him, he just wasn't good at expressing it. Before leaving the room he blew out the candle that revealed his son's features through the sheet. After his eyes adjusted to the darkness he left the room, the vision of his son's lifeless eyes burned into his memories.

-

"Mommy? When is Trunks going to wake up?" Bra asked, of coarse the little girl did not have any understanding of death.

"Bra, honey…" Bulma said kneeling down to her daughter as she tried to hold back tears, "Trunks isn't going to be waking up."

"Why not?" Bra asked innocently.

"He's tired," Vegeta said, having entered the room without catching the attention of either girls, "Life has made him tired, so he will sleep for a very long time."

Bulma silently thanked him for respecting the sensitivity of the situation, you can't go around telling five year-old that there brother has taken his life and she'll never see him again. What he said made perfect sense as well, Trunks was tired of life, so he put himself to sleep, permanently. If they thought it would help they might drag him back to this world using the Dragon Balls, but what would be the point? He would be just as miserable as he was when he decided to take his life.

"Okay." Bra said in a way that convinced them she had a rough understanding of what they were saying, "So when's dinner."

Bulma smiled weakly, at least things would be somewhat normal, even though it was her son that usually asked that. She assured them that dinner was almost done, though she could hardly say she could stomach food after seeing her son like that. As she moved food around on her plate she noticed Vegeta acting similarly, which caught her attention seeing as he never seemed to care about anything. Later she finally got him to tell her what was bothering him and he shared his fear that it was his fault that Trunks. Unfortunately she was unable to confirm one way or the other why their son had taken his life.

-

_Relax Bulma…all it is, is a room… with your son's dead body in it. Oh god, am I really doing this?_ It was around noon, Bra was at school and Vegeta… Vegeta had left around three that morning after being unable to sleep, and now she was going to check the room for a suicide note in hope to clear her husband's conscious, or at least put some closure to this affair. After one last deep breath she opened the door, the room was kinder in light without having the deadly flicker of the candle reflecting the blood. Not that it would reflect anyway with the sheet over it, blood soaked in around his left wrist. She did see something new in the room, though she could only assume it had been there the whole time.

By the candle stood a picture frame and a chain on a small piece of paper, a fountain pen lay a few inches carelessly so the red ink congealed on the table. She carefully plucked the paper from the bottom, realizing that the writing was not in ink, but very possibly blood. _Could this be any more macabre?_ She inspected the dropping from the pen, identical to that of the blood spatter, and she could only assume it was her son's blood. There were only a few lines written with great care on the paper, but she would remember them forever.

_My deed is one holding no regret or sadness on my part._

_The blame belongs to none of the living, but one of the recently dead._

_Do not cry for me, for I love you all, _

_But hours seem long without the one I care for most._

_My heart aches for her until reunited in eternal rest._

Five lines had never hurt her so much and made her so happy at the same time. She felt bad for his pain, but somewhat relieved that it wasn't her or Vegeta's fault. From the way he wrote he seemed to lay blame to someone, but it was obvious the one he loved died, so who was he blaming? And who was the person he loved enough to die for? Her eyes strayed to the picture frame, one that was eerily unfamiliar. She set down the paper and picked the picture up to get a better look at it.

There were two people, one was her son as happier than she had ever really seen him. In front of him was a girl just as happy as he was smiling with blue eyes and black shoulder length hair. _This must be the girl he was talking about, but who is- was she? _A sudden idea swept over her and she flipped over the frame and began undoing the clasps clumsily.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, woman?" Vegeta said from the door way.

"What ever happened to saying 'hi'?" Bulma said as she unhooked the last clasp.

"Fine. Hi, what the hell are you doing?" Vegeta growled.

"Trunks left a note saying he was killing himself because life was too painful without the girl he loved, not because of his family. He didn't put her name, but left a picture of them by the note, and usually girls write a description on the back including names." She explained as she pulled the picture from the frame, "And here it is." She read the writing.

_Trunks Briefs and Caitri on Trunks' seventeenth Birthday._

The look on Vegeta's face was a mix of relief of confusion, "He killed himself because his girlfriend died?"

She nodded and looked over at the note, but shimmer caught her eye and she picked it up, "No, because his fiancé died." It was two rings on a chain, one with a small diamond in it, her engagement ring.

Vegeta picked up the paper and flipped it over to find more writing, a news article actually. He began reading, "_Last night there was a brutal double murder in downtown killing Lydie Grant and her room mate Caitri Smith… _No, his fiancé was murdered. Why wouldn't he just bring the woman back with the dragon balls?"

Bulma thought for a moment, "He might have been thinking that if he brought her back to life he would chance that he'd have to live through her death again. This way they can be together forever."

(A/N: This is my first DBZ fic, so please don't hate me, don't own anything recognizable. If you like it I could make a sequel. Please review.)


End file.
